Tilt tray sorters, as they are known, have long been appropriate for the transport and separation of piece goods. The conveyable stock is in this case picked up by track-guided vehicles which on their top side have load carriers which are designed as carrying trays and are held horizontally for load transport and can be tilted for load shedding.
DE 40 90 308 T1 discloses a tilt tray conveyor of this type, in which tilting of the carrying trays is made possible by a cam follower roller connected to the tiltable carrying tray. Although the rollers slide in corresponding guides, the rollers are nevertheless subject to high resistance which exerts correspondingly high stress upon the mechanism. This solution can therefore be employed, at most, for smaller pieces of conveyable stock, the weight of which does not exceed a few kilograms. Moreover, the tilt tray conveyors of this type are highly complicated, since, in order to initiate the tilting movement of the carrying trays, complex levers and linkages are required which cooperate with likewise complex rails and guides along the route of the conveyor in the tilting region of the carrying trays. Furthermore, the tilt angle of the carrying trays is fixed invariably by the geometry of these mechanical components, and the tilting time point and tilting movement are fixed by the configuration of the mechanical guides next to the route of the conveyor.
It has also already been proposed to use an arrangement, travelling on the wagon, of a tilting drive in the form of an electric motor, which cooperates via a pinion with arcuate racks fastened to the frame of the wagon. The carrying tray is tilted as a result of the activation of the electric motor supported on the racks, with the result that the tilting lever, together with the carrying tray fastened to it, can be brought into the tilting position (EP 1 454 856 A1). By virtue of this arrangement, the tilting drive becomes independent of any guide rails, bends and control rollers along the route of the conveyor, and also of further mechanical linkages and levers, such as are known in the most diverse possible versions from the prior art.
Other existing tilt tray sorters have rigid activating mechanisms which are controlled both mechanically and electrically. The transmissions of movements take place via narrow-tolerance pairings or gearwheel mechanisms which demand complicated production methods or, in the event of faults, entail high risks of damage.